Monday, October 14, 2013

Living In Grace {Day 14}

Day 14

Expectations...sometimes this word can mean great and wonderful things, other times it means disappointment, and hurt feelings. I usually experience the latter.

I admit, I have high expectations for a lot of things in life. When starting out on a new adventure, I try to give myself a pep talk, "now don't expect too much." "You need to go into this expecting nothing." I try, I really try, but I still have expectations of not having expectations.

Don't get me wrong, I think having healthy expectations is a great thing. I have expectations of how my girls will act in public. I have expectations on how they treat other people, and I expect them to use their manners at all times. Now, are these expectations always met? Heck no they are not. Usually the reason is because there was a break down in communication, I either didn't express my expectations to them before we entered a situation, or I was not clear enough on what would happen if they didn't use their manners. And sometimes despite doing both of those things, I have to remember they are kids, they are not perfect, and they still need grace.

I have trouble extending grace when my expectations are not met.

It's sad, but true, basically when I don't get my own way I throw a temper tantrum and pout. My tantrum might not be visible to you, but internally I am kicking and screaming. But the thing is most of my unmet expectations come from not verbalizing my expectations.

For instance, when Eric and I go on a date, I mentally think of all the errands I would love to run without the kids, or I think about going to the mall to try on clothes without having a toddler crawl under all the dressing room doors. But 9 times out of 10 I don't say any of that to Eric. I assume he knows I would love to do that. Let me give you all a clue here, most guys don't just know that, most guys can not read your mind. Shocking, right?! Yet, I still act as if he can read my mind. So we'll go on with our date and I don't get to do any of those fabulous things I just listed, and then I pout. I ask myself, how could he not know I wanted to get a red dress like I have been talking about, how could he not know I wanted to get new running shoes. Well, he didn't know, and/or I didn't tell him what I wanted.